


Haneiros Halalu (ve'ein lanu reshus)

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 14:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: For years after, Emma had found excuses to wander the streets on Chanukah, searching for glowing windows and the smell of potatoes frying in sizzling oil. She’d found it in most cities, when she’d looked hard enough, even if it had taken all eight days. They’d been houses defiant in golden while red and green had filled the streets, and Emma had watched those little lights as they’d burned to nothingness and ached, ached.





	Haneiros Halalu (ve'ein lanu reshus)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangesmallbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesmallbard/gifts).



When Emma was eight years old, she’d spent one month being fostered by the Rubinsteins in Chicago. It had been a temporary stay from the start- a brief interlude after Punching Out The Tooth Of Handsy Foster Brother and being found a new group home, but she’d liked them. They’d been young enough that Emma had felt a bit as though she’d had a big sister in Mrs. Rubinstein, and the other kids had been little, gap-toothed and happy and without any concept of loneliness or being unloved.

 

Chanukah had come early that year, and Emma had known nothing about it but that it was, like, Jewish Christmas or something. There had been a few dozen Jewish families in the neighborhood, and Emma had hurried home from school that week and spotted menorahs adorning windows, the lights flickering in the dark.

 

The Rubinsteins had waited for her every night- had bought her a little silver menorah of her own, in case she’d wanted to light, too. She’d helped her five-year-old foster brother pick out the candles for his menorah, had hesitated over her own, and had backed away. She’s not Jewish, after all, and she isn’t a Rubinstein, either, much as she’d wished she might be some of those nights.

 

(She _thinks_ she isn’t Jewish, anyway. For a brief month, her thoughts of secret agents and fairytale princesses had faded into something more simple— a hand glancing over her eyes, whispering _Shema Yisrael_ before she’s wrapped again and left at the side of a freeway in Maine.)

 

The Rubinsteins hadn’t pressed her to light, but there had still been presents for her- a necklace and a card game and three books- and she’d sat with them afterwards as they’d sung Maoz Tzur and helped mix latke batter while Mr. Rubenstein had fried. In the evening, surrounded by glowing windows, Emma had walked back through a neighborhood that had felt almost like home.

 

It hadn’t been, of course. She’d been moved to Minnesota soon after and had celebrated Christmas with a gaggle of skinny orphans like herself who’d stared blankly at their plastic tree and thought only of being somewhere else.

 

Still, for years after, Emma had found excuses to wander the streets on Chanukah, searching for glowing windows and the smell of potatoes frying in sizzling oil. She’d found it in most cities, when she’d looked hard enough, even if it had taken all eight days. They’d been houses defiant in golden while red and green had filled the streets, and Emma had watched those little lights as they’d burned to nothingness and ached, ached.

 

 _Menorahs are meant to be at windows_ , Mr. Rubinstein had said on one night. _We share the miracle of our victory to the world_. Emma thinks sometimes that she’s a miracle victorious as well, that a crying bundle just outside the woods should never have been found or endured.

 

She survives, golden hair glittering in the light of the menorah, and she’ll endure as well.

 

Storybrooke is a small town, and a literal fairytale, and there are no sounds of Maoz Tzur drifting through the streets, of course. It’s been years of trudging through the streets, glancing furtively at windows as though she isn’t searching for a certain glow, but the only lights she sees are artificial bulbs, wrapped around roof gutters and draped over windows and skillfully arranged within a sea of spruce.

 

She basks in the holiday season, of course, same as everyone else. Storybrooke seems brighter now, happier, as though even a new villain couldn’t shatter this peace. Regina scoffs at all of it and still takes charge of the seasonal decorations with a firm and competent hand.

 

“Did Christmas exist in the Enchanted Forest?” Emma asks her one evening, when they’re wrapping presents together. It’s still a week to Christmas, which means that the only gifts they’re wrapped are the ones Regina had purchased for them to give together. “Or was it just the fake memories that brought it to Storybrooke?”

 

“No, it was there,” Regina says vaguely, frowning. “Pagan, in some areas. Others less so. Religion was a fragmented thing there.” Her brow furrows and she leans back against the wall, twisting ribbon around her finger. “Mother was never fond of the idea of anyone more powerful than her. Daddy didn’t speak about it much, but I know his family had traditions of some sort.”

 

“Christmas traditions?” Emma asks, but Regina shrugs, looking troubled. There are gaps in her history that Emma knows still eat away at her, bits and pieces that she’s never unraveled.

 

Emma has no gaps, only emptiness for so long, and she fills it now with holiday traditions. They decorate gingerbread men and put up stockings and wrap gifts. Henry drags them to a store in Bangor with a budget from Regina that’s frankly obscene, and they buy a dozen baubles and tinsel and some lights while Regina browses the lot outside, looking critically at trees before she gets their opinions.

 

“There are _maybe_ three that are passable,” Regina pronounces when she comes back inside, cheeks flushed from the cold and scarf askew. “Emma, I’m going to need you.”

 

“Yeah,” Emma says absently.

 

Regina lays a hand on her elbow. “Emma?” Emma hears the questioning tone and jolts a little, blinking out of her reverie. When she turns, Regina is staring at where Emma had been zoning out, at the little white menorah on the single blue display table in the specialty store.

 

Emma shrugs, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah,” she says, “Let’s look at trees.”

 

They leave with one that is much too big and enough decorations to cover it, and Sunday is spent on that chore, arranging everything just so under Regina’s guidance. Monday is spent on planning a Christmas dinner, and Emma glances through the calendar only once to see that the first night of Chanukah falls out on Christmas Eve this year.

 

Her house is glowing on Christmas Eve, windows bright with red and green in the drift of gentle snow, and Emma looks out the window and sees a half-dozen lit windows along the street, families curled up in front of fireplaces with mugs and singing together in their pajamas. Every window frames a tree, and Emma watches them all silently and feels warmth that never quite reaches the hollowness at her middle.

 

Soft arms encircle her, a cheek at her shoulder, and she is nothing but warmth for a moment. “I got you something else,” Regina murmurs, and she reaches back and presses a package into Emma’s hand. “I didn’t know…you’ve never _said_ , but it seemed…important.” She nuzzles an uncertain kiss into Emma’s neck, and Emma unwraps the gift.

 

Somehow she knows right away. She takes off the paper carefully, pulling it from the box that holds the menorah, and she doesn’t know what she can say to explain any of it. “I looked up the dates,” Regina says, her voice rough. “Tonight, right? I got the oil cups, too. If you want to…to light it, or…”

 

It’s a kind gift, the sort of gift that only Regina can give her, and Emma doesn’t know how to explain that this isn’t how it goes, that the menorah is never _hers_ . It’s about seeing the lights from the other side of the window, about being on the outside looking in, about _golden miracle_ that she can never touch.

 

“No,” Emma says finally, and she twists and holds Regina in her arms, sways with her in front of the window, kisses her forehead and does all she can to reassure Regina that this is good. They’re good, and they’re fragile as the candles on a menorah, and sometimes they need to be careful that they don’t burn so hard and fast that there’s nothing left.

 

They burn like the oil of the story, a tiny jar never meant to last as long as it does. Another miracle, and Emma knows it every night when she climbs into bed with brown eyes watching her as intently as her foster family had watched those flames.

 

In the morning, there are more presents and the menorah sits on the sill, nearly invisible beside the giant tree they’d lugged home from Bangor. There’s a dusting of snow on the lawn and Henry bounces around the house, loaded up with sugar and enthusiasm.

 

They go to the town Christmas brunch at Granny’s and Snow plants a Santa hat on Regina, infuriating her and making Emma laugh harder than she has in months. Regina sighs expansively at that and leaves the hat on, and somehow, she makes it work.

 

Christmas dinner is just for family, and Emma’s afternoon is spent cleaning the house, setting the table and mashing potatoes while Regina spices the soup and bakes. They’re just about done when Snow and David spill into the house, Neal running wild ahead of them to find his own presents in front of the tree.

 

“Whoa,” David says when Neal crashes into the tree, steadying it as ornaments tumble down. Emma peeks into the room, determines all is well, and heads back to the kitchen as David continues. “Easy, little guy. Your presents are still–” He stops, and when he speaks again, it’s careful, uncertain. “What is…?”

 

Emma _knows_ , and she leaves the potatoes and slips into the living room, watching David as he reaches for the menorah and traces the patterns on the ceramic branches. “Dad,” she says, biting her lip, and this is too personal, too private to share or explain. Regina wouldn’t ask for details, but Snow undoubtedly will, and Emma steels herself to come up with something blasé–

 

“My mother had one of these,” David says distantly, and it all comes crashing down at once.

 

Emma’s heart thumps wildly, wildly. “She what?”

 

David lifts the menorah and examines it, the furrow in his brow more pronounced. “She lit it when I was younger, I think, but she stopped after my father died. I never asked about it. I hadn’t thought about it in years–” He turns the menorah in his hands, eyes wondering. “Where did you find this?”

 

Emma crumples, leans back against the wall before she can fall to the floor and blinks away disbelieving tears. David is moving toward her just as Regina reaches her, her father’s arms around her and Regina with a steadying hand at her back.

 

There are no latkes sizzling on the stove, and there are no songs. There’s a dinner all together in which Snow chatters about the religions of the Enchanted Forest and Regina pinches the bridge of her nose and says very little. Zelena comes late and leaves early, Neal and Henry fall asleep on top of each other on the couch, and it’s just Regina and Emma and her parents by the time the sun has fully set and the street is dark.

 

Regina clears her throat when they’re done with her supposedly-ironic apple turnovers, and she says, tentative, “I do have those oil cups.”

 

There are no latkes and there are no songs, no dreidels to spin and no donuts or gelt and no discussion of Maccabees and the meaning of diaspora. But there is Emma, lighting candles on the second night of Chanukah almost three decades after the first time she’d seen them. She doesn’t make a blessing– she doesn’t have this history, even if there are pieces of it where she sees her reflection– but she lights two wicks on the side of the menorah and the taller one in the center and she cries, tears spilling down her face as Regina hovers behind her.

 

David watches the candles for a long time. Snow watches David, thoughtful. Emma steps away from the menorah and past the tree, past the kids on the couch and to the foyer. She tugs on her coat and walks outside.

 

The menorah is bright in the window, glowing golden, and Regina is standing behind it with her eyes on Emma. _Come inside_ , she mouths, and Emma does.


End file.
